City Conserves Water

By Draining Pools

City conserves water by draining pools

Even though rain is expected this week, the City is still under a Stage I Water Conservation Alert and continues to encourage City residents to conserve water. Stage 1 is triggered when the water plant has used 80 percent of its water for three consecutive days, which has occurred several times over the last two months as the drought continues.

On Friday, Gov. Mike Easley also asked local officials who have not already implemented water conservation measures in their cities and counties to do so immediately as the drought continues to worsen across North Carolina. Ninety-three of the state’s 100 counties are now experiencing exceptional, extreme or severe drought.

The city is doing its part to conserve as staff began to drain water from three city swimming pools this week and re-use the water for irrigation. The pool water is being routed to nearby sprinklers to water the grass in the parks surrounding the pools. Not only does this help to conserve water, but over 600,000 gallons of water will have been kept from entering the sewer system after all three pools are drained. The draining process will take up to a week for each pool, depending on the weather.

Did you know…

Outdoor water use and irrigation accounts for about 70 percent of average household use. The remaining 30% is used for drinking, cleaning, cooking, and toilet or faucet leaks that haven’t been repaired. Only about 1 percent of water is actually consumed.

The average household uses about 300 gallons of water a day – that means the city is saving the amount of water 2,000 households use on an average day by re-using the pool water.